Meet the Utah mom using TikTok to stop bullies in their tracks

Yahoo

14 hours ago

Jaime Hamilton can't keep up with the hundreds of heartbreaking messages she gets every day.
'What do you do when someone hits you in the head every day even tho you have told them to stop (7th grade)'
'My son was choked by another boy in school/lunchroom and nothing was done by principal.'
'I lost my 14-year-old son to suicide (stemmed) from bullying.'
'They called my daughter a stupid Barbie. She's in kindergarten.'
A communications expert in Utah, Hamilton often spends hours sifting through messages like these. Through her viral TikTok account, which now has more than 315,000 subscribers, she's made it her mission to equip kids with language that disarms bullies and disrupts the power dynamic. Although she can't respond to all of the messages, their weight stays with her.
Sometimes filming from her kitchen while chopping vegetables or casually perched on her living room couch, Hamilton offers bite-sized and concrete tips: verbal and non-verbal strategies to help kids, and parents, stand up to bullies and regain a sense of control.
'For example, if a bully says to you 'you're so ugly' — your response can be 'pancakes.' And then continue on with your life," Hamilton said in one of her videos. Language is symbolic, she says, and the communication unrelated to the verbal attack can effectively 'throw off the bully.'
A former director of a nationally competitive speech and debate team at Indiana University Indianapolis, Hamilton understands just how powerful words can be. The mother of three (including two teens) is reaching hundreds of thousands of parents with her hands-on advice.
And people are listening.
Since launching her first videos in 2020, Hamilton's social media presence has skyrocketed. In just the past month, her Instagram following jumped by over 200,000.
'This passion project has taken over my life,' Hamilton, who runs the STEM and Arts Academy in Lehi, Utah, told me. (The academy also partners with an elementary school in Spanish Fork to offer classes in game design, robotics, animation and 3D printing.)
The surge in interest in her social media following reflects a deeper national anxiety.
Bullying and cyberbullying are top concerns for parents. Studies show about one in three children experience bullying at some point in their lives, with 10–14% facing chronic bullying that lasts more than six months. A recent study in the journal BMC Public Health investigated the link between bullying and trauma and found that even non-extreme forms of cyberbullying can cause psychological harm. It also revealed that nearly 9 in 10 students had experienced some form of online victimization, and the frequency of cyberbullying — not demographics — was the strongest predictor of trauma symptoms.
'Bullying affects all aspects of their life: it affects everything, in the immediate and in the long-term. It affects their mental health, their physical health, their academic achievement, their sense of self,' said Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt, a professor of psychology who studies bullying at the University of Ottawa in Canada, in a recent podcast interview. 'It changes who they are fundamentally. And not only that — it lasts a lifetime.' And yet the impacts of many anti-bullying laws and programs have been mixed.
In light of these troubling statistics, Hamilton believes there's one powerful intervention in combatting bullying that we often overlook: equipping kids — and parents — with the right words.
One day, while teaching communication studies at Florida State Community College — now called Florida State College at Jacksonville — Hamilton asked her students: What's the worst thing anyone has ever said to you?
Many of her students came from lower-income backgrounds and struggled academically. She soon learned that bullying was another, albeit less visible challenge, they were facing.
Multiple students told her they had been told 'Go kill yourself.' Some students said they heard that phrase every day and they didn't know how to respond to it. Hamilton wanted to help.
Bullying involves 'unwanted, aggressive behavior' and a 'real or perceived power imbalance,' according to the national bullying prevention website.
Hamilton, who lives in Draper, adds that bullying isn't just being mean to others, but repeated behavior that harms 'self-concept,' the perception that individuals have about themselves. To assert this dominance, bullies send verbal and non-verbal messages.
Hamilton asked her students how this behavior made them feel and they tried to deconstruct the interaction. But what stood out most to her was how unprepared they were and how few tools they had to respond. That moment sparked something. She began thinking about simple, effective strategies that her students could use in response to bullying. As a communications professor, she realized there was an entire body of research in her field that she could tap into for effective strategies.
At the core of Hamilton's messaging toolkit is what she calls 'neutral messages' — phrases and words that can defuse the power dynamic and prevent escalation. Some of her favorite neutral messages are: 'Nope' and 'I don't care,' and even something random and out-of-context, like just saying 'pizza' or 'pancake,' could be an effective response, too.
Although neutral messaging was originally applied in the context of relationships, Hamilton found that some of these concepts could work for bullying. Blending academic theory with the lived experience and the needs of her students, she came up with a set of tools designed to not just fight back, but to help kids hold onto their sense of self.
'Bullying is nothing more than a power struggle, and it's an act of dominance,' she said.
Instead of sending a submissive message affirming the bully's power or responding with another domineering message, Hamilton says the neutral messages are 'one-across' messages that don't carry any power and often leave the instigator at a loss and curb the bullying.
'Unfortunately, we will never be able to get rid of all bullies — whether play is supervised or not. So what we can try to do is teach kids how not to be victims (per 'bullying expert' Izzy Kalman)," Lenore Skenazy, author of 'Free-Range Kids' and co-founder of the nonprofit Let Grow, recently wrote.
Kids should be taught what Skenazy calls 'social jiu-jitsu' — the ability to respond to verbal bullying with humor or indifference to defuse conflict.
One of Hamilton's first viral videos was inspired by an interaction with a kindergartner in her neighborhood who came to her in tears, saying the kids on the school bus called her a 'baby.'
'I looked right at her and said, 'I want to tell you what to say,'' Hamilton remembered.
'She goes, 'What?' I said, 'You look right at them and say: 'Nope.''
They role-played the scenario together. The next time the teasing happened, the girl used the line — and it worked.
That moment led Hamilton to make a video sharing the tactic. The response was overwhelming — and heartbreaking.
'People flooded the comments: This is happening to my kid. Can you help?' Hamilton said. 'That's when I realized parents are desperate for tools they can give their kids.'
She knew, of course, that no one-size-fits-all answer exists. Especially for neurodivergent kids, who might struggle with eye contact or verbal processing, off-the-cuff comebacks aren't always realistic. But Hamilton believed there was still a need for people to learn how to apply the tools of communication theory to everyday situations like schoolyard bullying.
One clip she made stirred a debate. In the video, she introduced what she called the 'bear tactic' — arms extended to create space, a loud clap to grab attention, and a calm, cutting line like, 'Do you feel better now? I hope so,' followed by a confident walk-away.
Hamilton acknowledged this strategy wouldn't work in every context — in some situations, turning your back on someone aggressive could escalate risk. 'There are two very different meanings to one nonverbal cue,' she said. 'That makes it a controversial message.'
She followed up with a breakdown of where and when such a strategy might be appropriate, using her academic background to explain the nuance.
Sometimes the replies she suggests are disarmingly simple, almost absurd. To 'Go kill yourself,' she suggests: 'No thanks, I enjoy living' or just a flat: 'Nope.'
When a parent asked what her son, who stutters, can say to people who mock him, Hamilton offered a non-verbal response: 'Look them right in the eye until they look away.' Another option is to give them a confused look, as if you don't know what they're saying.
'The neutral message really carries no power,' she said. 'It shows that it doesn't affect the person.'
Hamilton believes the current messaging around bullying is overdue for a refresh — including the content on the national bullying website, which is widely used in schools to develop anti-bullying curricula. 'I'd love to help with that,' she said.
One outdated piece of advice she thinks needs to go? The 'just walk away' tactic.
'When you ignore somebody who is being mean to you, we teach our kids to be passive in conflict and that's not necessarily great,' she told me.
In overcrowded classrooms where teachers often lack the time or resources to intervene, Hamilton believes kids need to be equipped with the right words. 'We want to teach kids how to be assertive, not aggressive,' she said. Simply walking away, she explained, can reinforce a harmful power dynamic — signaling to the bully that his target has no defense.
Unlike face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying — which plays out in digital spaces like phone group chats and on social media —presents different challenges. It's harder to escape and can be even more emotionally draining, she said.
In these cases, Hamilton teaches that kids need to know they can reject and reframe harmful messages.
'When kids are cyberbullied, they can either stop reading the messages or learn not to internalize them,' she said. 'We need to teach them to ask: Why am I letting a stranger define who I am?'
That kind of inner dialogue, she said, is essential: ''Don't care' needs to be part of their mental repertoire.'
She also encourages parents to be active participants in their children's lives — volunteer in classrooms, document bullying incidents, and, if necessary, advocate for school changes. Whether the bully sits across a lunch table or behind the screen, Hamilton's overarching goal is raising emotionally resilient children who know who they are and who aren't easily swayed by outside voices.
To shift that dynamic, Hamilton is reviving her YouTube channel, which will be dedicated to bullying awareness and equipping families to use words, gestures and face expressions to stand up to bullies and curb bullying behavior within their communities. She's thrilled to have recently gotten a book contract to write about bullying.
Meanwhile, with her own kids in junior high and high school, she's never short on real-life inspiration: 'I've got years and years of content for videos,' she said.